


We're a Team

by Stylin_Breeze



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fist Fights, Gen, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Minor Injuries, tagged just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stylin_Breeze/pseuds/Stylin_Breeze
Summary: Yahaba banked on being the last one to go home. He didn't expect Kyoutani to still be here, but that was negligible.
Relationships: Kyoutani Kentarou & Yahaba Shigeru
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797484
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	We're a Team

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crows_Imagine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crows_Imagine/gifts).



> My first installment for Bad Things Happen Bingo! Go to my [tumblr](https://stylinbreeze60.tumblr.com/post/621269744283222016/stylinbreeze60-join-the-stylin-breeze-edition) to see the prompts and to make a request. (You don't have to be on tumblr to request a prompt!)
> 
> The prompt was "Take Me Instead" for KyouHaba. (This isn't a literal interpretation of the prompt, but I hope you enjoy~)

In just a few weeks, Seijoh’s volleyball team would participate in the last Inter-High regionals of the school year—and the last chance ever to go to nationals for team captain Shigeru Yahaba. They had lost humiliatingly in the summer regionals to Datekou. This winter, the energy in the room was patently stronger, especially now that Kyoutani returned from his monthlong suspension and quickly slid back into his groove.

The only person at evening practice who was out of it tonight was Yahaba.

“I’m going to stay back and practice something,” Yahaba announced after the team finished cleaning the gym. Several volunteered to help, but Shigeru insisted it was something that had to be tried on his own. More resistance came, but Yahaba stood his ground. When the holdouts finally slinked out, Kyoutani trailed out last, eyeing the captain suspiciously.

Shigeru bided his time in expectation that everyone would change clothes and go home. And even then, a desire to avoid his fate spurred him to aimlessly toss the ball up and down even more. Only when he couldn’t prolong the inevitable any longer did he skulk back to the club room, certain everyone was long gone.

So, when he opened the door, he shrieked at the sight of Kyoutani leaning on the back windowsill.

“What are you doing here?!” Shigeru cried.

“Waiting,” came a pointed reply.

“Obviously,” Yahaba grumbled. He proceeded to undress as normal. As he slipped off his volleyball shorts, he caught Kyoutani wordlessly scrutinizing him.

“Ew! Don’t stare at me when I’m changing!” Shigeru erupted. Kentarou Kyoutani didn’t heed the rebuke, and Yahaba turned his back to keep the boy out of sight, out of mind.

Even after Yahaba’s was changed, Kyoutani’s disposition hadn’t morphed an inch. Yahaba didn’t know what the boy was after and lacked the patience right now to care.

“Fine. You’re in charge of locking up.” He flipped the club room keys through the air. Kyoutani didn’t so much as flinch, letting the keyring jingle when it hit the rough carpet.

“Fine,” Kentarou scoffed with undue delay.

Whatever awkward mood this was, Yahaba grimaced at it and left.

He’d banked on being the last one out so that the usual posse he walked home with wouldn’t be around. Kyoutani always went a different route though, so Shigeru had nothing to worry about.

What possessed his teammate tonight? It was Kyoutani’s third day back since the month’s suspension for beating up a fellow third-year, a basketball player who in front of the team said volleyball was for “sissies.” On Kentarou’s first day returning to practice, Yahaba emphatically warned him that if he got in another fight, he’d get expelled. It was a couple of weeks until the regionals. Kyoutani was the ace, the team’s flagship, the player for whom the shouts of “Mad Dog” now were endearment, not a slight. Athletically, they couldn’t afford to lose him.

But witnessing Kyoutani rabidly pummel their classmate last month made Yahaba doubt anything had changed in “Mad Dog’s” heart. Tonight especially, his behavior sucked balls.

Was he mad at Yahaba for laying down the law and panning his irresponsible stupidity?

Typical.

The punch knocked the stuffing out of Yahaba’s face. He collapsed on his side.

“That’s what you get for lookin’ at my girl!”

Yahaba had this coming, ever since he’d tried coming on to one of his classmates. Turned out, she had a boyfriend….

“She didn’t say she had a boyfriend, and if you’re it, I see why.”

The jab earned Yahaba a brutal kick in the gut.

When the boyfriend confronted Yahaba, Shigeru promised to back off right then and there. He even apologized (not that he meant it, given how much of a jerk the guy was being).

It wasn’t enough. The boy said they would settle things. Yahaba blew it off, until the guy threatened to tell the principal Yahaba was dealing drugs. Even if the accusation were proven false, that kind of publicity, on top of Kyoutani’s snafu, would tarnish the volleyball club so badly it may get shut down for the rest of the year.

This was their last chance to vie for nationals. Yahaba couldn’t let it end that way.

The two agreed to meet in an alley on Yahaba’s route home. Shigeru planned to get it over with as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t fight back. He’d just let the guy throw a few punches, and then Yahaba would carry on life like the whole affair never happened.

What Shigeru didn’t expect was the guy to bring two of his thuggish buds, even burlier than the offended party himself.

One of the thugs kicked Shigeru in the shoulder so hard he rolled over. The pounding continued. Yahaba gritted his teeth through the pain, hoping for the lashing to stop. He just had to bear it until they’d had their fill.

He could feel the bruises forming. He dreaded seeing his face in the mirror later. But the pounding kept up….

“Hey.”

The thuggish trio looked behind them at the unexpected arrival. Yahaba forced an eye open.

Frowning, Kyoutani stood between the long alley and the street, carrying his backpack over his shoulder.

“Huh?! What do you want?” the orchestrator railed.

“Let him go,” Kyoutani said gravely.

Yahaba wanted to object but had no more energy to do anything but exhale heavily.

“Huh?! And who’re you?”

“Beat me instead if ya gotta beat somebody.”

“Wha—?” and the threesome burst out laughing.

“What? Y’afraid to fight me?”

That got the trio’s attention. Yahaba mouthed “Kyoutani, no,” but couldn’t voice the syllables.

The taller of the leader’s two companions then stepped forward in a moment of recognition. “Wait a minute. You’re the guy who beat up Tashi!” That’s when Yahaba realized the tall guy was a teammate of the basketball player Kyoutani thrashed. “Let me have a piece of him!” he asked the ringleader.

“Heh. Fine. Not like I was gettin’ a rise out of that wimpy captain of yours,” chuckled the leader, smirking at Kentarou.

Flinging his backpack to the side, Kyoutani showed his fists. The vengeful basketball player charged with a roar. Yahaba tried to stand but couldn’t. It’s not like he had anything to fear though, because Kyoutani could take these three easily.

So, when Kyoutani threw a punch that grossly missed his attacker and got nailed ripely in the face, it didn’t compute in Yahaba’s brain.

Kyoutani went down hard. The three thugs then proceeded to pummel him even more mercilessly than Yahaba.

Kentarou squeezed himself into a ball, bracing his head with his hands. It was nothing against the malicious kicks. The group picked him up and punched him more. Shigeru squeaked—the only noises he could make—begging the assault to end.

But Kyoutani didn’t fight back once.

“What the heck?! This weakling beat up Tashi?!” cried the tall one, an exclamation that with heavy disappointment caused the three to relent. Neither slugfest tonight had been anything close to satisfying.

Heavily beaten, Kyoutani stolidly glared at his foes. The leader delivered one more stalwart kick to the face. For a moment, Kyoutani didn’t move after that.

“Come on. I’m bored of this,” said the leader, and the trio casually stepped over Kyoutani’s body, headed to the street.

His legs screaming in pain, his face cut up, Yahaba crawled toward Kentarou who stirred and splayed onto his back.

“Kyoutani…,” Shigeru squeaked. “You idiot.” Shigeru kneeled in front of his teammate. “You could have taken those guys…. Why didn’t you?”

Staring at the slim view of the sky between the buildings lining the alley, Kyoutani heaved measuredly as he spoke.

“You said…if I…got in a fight…I’d get…expelled….”

Yahaba couldn’t believe his ears.

“Then why did you get involved?! This was _my_ screwup! If you weren’t going to fight back, you should have ignored it!”

“No.”

“Why?!”

“Because…we’re a team.”

That stifled any objection Shigeru could conjure.

“Are you an idiot?” Shigeru muttered, fighting tears he didn’t expect to be so strong. Kentarou Kyoutani had been nigh unbearable in their first two years. There were many days Yahaba wished he disappear and was happy when, for a time last year, he did.

This final year, however, it’d been different. Kyoutani let his ego go just a little. He meshed so much better with the squad, with his peers. But even then, Kyoutani had never—unprompted—described himself as part of the “team.”

Yet Kyoutani had at last begun to recognize his place. And Yahaba’s stomach sank at the realization Kentarou’s feelings had burgeoned so strongly they’d compelled him to make a sacrifice like this.

“I don’t care what they do to me,” Kyoutani said. “But I care what they do to my teammates.”

Another unbelievable thought crossed Yahaba’s mind.

“Wait. Are you saying you didn’t beat up that guy last month because he called you a sissy, but because he insulted the rest of the team?”

Kyoutani’s face shriveled up with vexation. He hated being read like a book.

Yahaba read him even more. His strange behavior in the club room—it was all because he suspected something was up with Yahaba.

“How did you know those guys were gonna jump me?”

“You were actin’ weird ever since that girl. It was obvious,” Kentarou said.

Yahaba full-on sobbed. “I’m sorry for getting you mixed up in this.”

“Shut up,” Kentarou rebuked softly. “Cry when we win nationals.”

At that, Shigeru instantly shut his tear ducts by force.

“Right!”

Yahaba lifted Kyoutani up. Kyoutani stumbled on his first step, but Yahaba placed his teammate’s arm on his shoulders and helped him out of the alley.

**Author's Note:**

> There's more to come.... Again, check out my [tumblr](https://stylinbreeze60.tumblr.com/post/621269744283222016/stylinbreeze60-join-the-stylin-breeze-edition) for details!  
> ~Breeze


End file.
